


Restraint

by cecilantro



Series: 100 Days Of Ficlets [46]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 07:41:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14304003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilantro/pseuds/cecilantro
Summary: Some spoilers for whatever episode we're on. 9x14? numbers, man.Caleb leans against him harder and he swallows down another wave of tears, Caleb doesn’t need to see him cry.





	Restraint

**Author's Note:**

> that backstory drop was all i wanted also you can pry molly fucking up from my cold dead hands

It’s been such a long  _ fucking _ night, Molly still can’t sleep, he’s been trying for hours and it’s got to be past midnight now. He slips out of bed and tucks the covers back up around Fjord, he’s been so patient and loving, and moves to the window to open it, quietly. He climbs up, nimble and careful, to the windowsill and sits with his legs crossed and swinging a little. It’s a heavy fall down, they’re on the second storey, but the thrill of the danger and trust in the body he’s come to own is what helps, tonight, he breathes deep and even.   
The only room of the Nein’s that doesn’t look out on the back alley is Jester and Beau’s, it’s hardly a view, but there’s no crownsguard or traffic below so it could be worse. He leans against the window frame and exhales, as though trying to let the gentle, surprisingly warm breeze take his troubles from him.   
He never wanted this. Not  _ like _ this.    
Molly doesn’t close his eyes. Doesn’t blink. Every time he does, there’s the idea of dirt, again, suffocating and heavy and horrid and there’s flashes, too, he’s sure, he’s sure he was a terrible person before. No, that’s not the right phrasing.   
He’s sure whoever was here before him was terrible.    
His thoughts, the ones he had so hoped to slow and stop, are interrupted by a clicking from his right, the sound of a window opening, and he takes a sudden breath in the split-second before he remembers that Caleb and Nott roomed right next to them, it’s their window, and a moment later he sees arms cross on the window frame and the tip of a familiar nose, hears Caleb sigh, knows that he still can’t see Molly from where he is.    
Molly considers being alone, for a while, and eventually decides against it, slides carefully along his perch, closer to Caleb’s window and waves his tail out as far as it’ll go without unbalancing him.   
It takes a few slow waves for Caleb to catch sight of the tip, up and down, slow, Molly doesn’t realise he’s breathing with it until Caleb leans out and he pulls it back in.   
Caleb looks him up and down, and oh, he must be a sight, he’s sure he’s been crying but he grins, anyways, and wiggles his fingers in greeting.   
A slight frown creases Caleb’s brows and he mouths,  _ are you okay? _   
Molly knows from the handful of times he’s woken Caleb in the morning that Nott prefers the bed by the window, so she’s asleep, and Caleb is trying not to wake her.    
He considers the truth but can’t stand it, it’ll worry him, he’s sure, so he nods and there’s only a brief flicker to his grin. Caleb’s frown deepens and Molly catches the edge of what he thinks might be  _ bullshit _ , and fuck. Caleb jerks his head back into the room, toward the door, and disappears. Molly supposes he should have known better than to think he could fool Caleb tonight, when he’s so tuned in, and he hears the window next door click shut, sighs, if he doesn’t go to meet him, Molly knows he’ll just wake Fjord by knocking or coming into their room. So he turns, uses his tail to hold him on the ledge as he does, and picks over a sleeping Horus- he’d been kicked from Beau and Jester’s room to make space for Yasha- and moves to the door.

 

Caleb is waiting outside when he gets into the hall, Molly avoids meeting his eyes as long as possible, clicks the door closed as quiet and slow as he possibly can and when he turns, Caleb has crept a little closer.   
“Sit, Mollymauk.” Caleb near-demands in a whisper, there’s a softness to his voice that Molly just  _ hates _ but he does, slips down the wall until his ass hits the floor and stays put. Caleb sinks down next to him.   
“Did you think I wouldn’t be able to tell that you were fucking with me?” is the first thing Caleb asks, and Molly feels a rush of  _ relief  _ that Caleb isn’t treating him gently, with pity, he’s not delicate. He gives one, breathy laugh, and shakes his head,   
“Doesn’t mean I couldn’t try.”   
“Hm. True. Move a little,” and Caleb has hold of his shoulder, pushing until Molly sits with his back to the wall, cross-legged, and Caleb sits beside him with their shoulders brushing and knees knocking awkwardly, “Better.”   
Molly supposes it’s Caleb’s best way of comforting, without treating him like he’s completely stupid, and he looks over and sees the glint of knowing in Caleb’s eye and hates it.   
“I- I understand the, ah, the,” Caleb taps his temple, “Memories. The ones that you do not want, coming back, when you do not want.”   
“They’re not  _ my _ memories.” Molly bites, a little, his tail swishes angrily to the side and Caleb reaches out and sets a hand gently to Molly’s wrist, he hadn’t realised that he was balling fistfuls of his pants in clenched fists until the touch makes him loosen.   
“That is where we differ.” Caleb says, seriously, “I know. But they are memories that you have of whatever there was before you, and they affect you just as seriously as my  _ own _ memories affect me,   _ ja _ ?”   
Molly is quiet for a long while.   
“It’s been a while since something that I remembered has messed me up as much as, as I’ve seen…” and he’s stuttering, fuck, he swears he’s not delicate but there’s a burn in his eyes and nose and he knows there’s tears, now, “As much as I’ve seen it mess with you.” he finishes, and turns, fractionally, “Your memories hollow you out, Caleb, and I remember so hazily after I woke up but  _ empty _ is something I never want to be again.”   
Caleb leans against him harder and he swallows down another wave of tears, Caleb doesn’t need to see him cry.    
“But it happens.” It’s not a question. He knows. Molly swallows again but it’s too late and a fresh wave of tears begins, Caleb sighs and turns properly to dab them away with the sleeve of his shirt. The lock of hair that tumbles over Molly’s face so often is trembling along with his body, he sweeps a hand up to push it away and brushes Caleb’s hand, tenses as he cries just a little harder in the wake of the contact,   
“Come here.” Caleb tugs, and Molly becomes pliant and soft in his hands, his arms wind around his back and tighten, Molly is just loose and sobbing and he does, he feels hollowed out. Caleb is mumbling in Zemnian, against his ear, gentle, and it’s a bitter feeling of repayment for Mollymauk. He finds strength in his arms again, pulls them up around Caleb and turns his head against Caleb’s neck and just, sobs, softly, it hurts more like this, he thinks. He prefers the break down, the full thing, with the choking on his own breath and the rattled breathing and the pulling his own hair out, pacing and hurting and everything being wrong. There’s so much wrong here, now, but his life is still so much better than it could have been and he hurts for the loss of the carnival and he misses Toya and he wants Yasha and Caleb’s hand slips to curl under Molly’s thigh. When did he turn onto his knees? Caleb isn’t a strong man, but he’s a determined one, he pulls hard until Molly slides into his lap, there’s a lot of bones digging into soft flesh and if anyone came along, the positioning is dubious. Sadly straddling someone is something Molly can now check off his list, but that’s for later, he shuffles to pulls his arms up around Caleb’s neck instead. Caleb’s hand trails a pattern up and down his back, it’s oddly grounding, when he regains control of his breathing, he follows it the same way he followed the wave of his tail at the window.   
When he draws away, he doesn’t move off of Caleb’s lap, doesn’t seem like Caleb wants him to, there’s still the arms locked around his lower back. Molly’s face feels swollen from crying and hurting but he searches in Caleb’s eyes to find, he hopes, just please, he thinks he sees it.   
“Would you- If I asked, would you kiss me?” he holds his tail deliberately still, he knows how it waves and trembles when he’s nervous.   
“Is that not asking?” Caleb’s voice has just the slightest lilt of an invisible smile.   
“I, oh, yes, I suppose. Would you?”   
Caleb studies him,   
“I want to.” He admits, a shaking breath comes after, “But I do not think that your head is, is quite straight enough tonight, you are drunk and upset, you do not need to, to, to, be getting into any more mistakes.”   
Molly frowns, it’s concern, not rejection that makes it,   
“I have wanted this for a while.” He tells Caleb, and it’s hard to be this close in this way and not any closer, “Since, since the first day-”   
Caleb laughs, a little, “The question from Jester under the Zone,” oh, he knows which one, “Directed to Yasha, but, but you answered-”   
“Yes.” Molly’s eyes meet Caleb’s in a shock down his spine, and Caleb shakes his head a little,    
“Fjord is the attractive one.”   
Molly shifts a hand from the back of Caleb’s neck, presses his fingertips lightly to the angle of his jaw, “Fjord has the bone structure and the calming presence.” It’s a correction, “I came into the tavern in Trostenwald and found something I’ve been searching for. It was your eyes, Caleb. People like you and I hold our locked memories in them, and I f- I, fell. Immediately.”   
It’s such a lack of eloquence, something that Caleb’s learnt to expect, it’s a shock, and he pulls Molly a little closer, can’t help it,    
“I don’t want you to, to, to regret, Mollymauk, I am more problem than person, you cannot make the cognitive decision tonight.”   
“One kiss.” Molly barters, “And I promise I’ll still love you in the morning.”   
“There is no more Zone of Truth for me to trust in your words, you have said yourself that lies make people happy, and you know that, that is exactly what I want to hear.”   
Molly’s hand slips back from Caleb’s jaw to his neck again, and he nods,   
“I can’t prove to you that I’m being honest. I’m rarely honest. I can tell you, honestly, that I am, but you have no reason or way to trust me.”   
And that’s what gets it. Molly is a liar, but this, a lie like this, he knows would hurt Caleb. And that’s how he knows that Molly  _ isn’t _ lying, that Molly  _ is _ in love with him, that he  _ will _ still love him in the morning.   
“One kiss.” He says, softly, “And a conversation in the morning.”   
“Deal.” And Molly leans in and presses the  _ gentlest _ fucking kiss to Caleb’s lips, draws it out as long as he possibly can, it takes all of Caleb’s willpower not to chase him when he pulls away.   
Instead, he leans forward, sets his forehead to Molly’s collarbone and breathes three deep, even breaths.   
“You will still feel the same in the morning?” and he knows that he can’t take Molly’s answer seriously, he’s too sad, too drunk, but he wants to believe. Molly kisses the top of his head.   
“I will.”   
They pry apart and stand, the trailing of hands, any contact, and Caleb actually  _ believes _ that Molly will love him in the morning.   
“See you tomorrow, my dear.” Molly’s hand is on his doorknob and Caleb wants to kiss him again but no, not when he’s like this.    
“I love you.” slips out before he can stop it, and Molly’s smile is genuine and soft.   
“I love you too.”   
He re-enters his room and gets into bed, the moment his head hits the pillow he’s out like a light, his dreams are dark and full only of the soft sensation of Caleb’s kiss. 

**Author's Note:**

> LOOK i know that it's probably Fjord that he finds attractive cause fjords canonically handsome but!!!! you can ALSO pry widomauk from my cold, dead hands  
> (Fjollygast is a better alternative to murdering me. sometimes. idk. maybe. fjollygast is always good but i am more problem than person)
> 
> anyway Molly and his "the person who had this body before me is NOT ME" is like, way too relatable. It's been three years for me and I relate very very hard, even though I retain the majority of the memories I had, I didn't exist until whatever was in my head broke. I am not who I was, I'm not smart, I have no potential, but i AM really gay so jot that down.


End file.
